Hi I am editing a document with an existing automatic table of contents (someone else authored this document, and I'm supposed to update it), and I am editing with track changes on.
To be clear, here is what happens.
Example document

Table of contents
1Introduction
1.1 Welcome
1.2 How are you?
2 what to do
3 conclusion

Document
1 Introduction
1.1 welcome to blah;lakjd f;alksd fa
1.2 We hope you have had a nice journey. How was it?

2 what to do
las;sdjkfa ;sd
3 conclusion
af;lsdkjs ;




I go in to add a new section after section 1.1 I select the same heading for the new section as the other sub sections have. But find that numbering isn't turned on. So when I hit enter to make what will now be new section 1.2, no number 1.2 appears and what's worse, the old number 1.2 doesn't automatically become 1.3! But the new title will automatically populate in the table of contents, but not the number?
Did the person who made this document actually mannually number the sections? I can't believe this would be the case. Then I'd have to manually change all the following sections! crazy. Or am I missing something? Is track changes incompatible with updating the TOC? Should the numbering possibly be assumed feature of a heading format? If so, why isn't that working? And If not, how can I fix it, and retain the style of numbering Heading 1 with the whole numbers, Heading 2 with the decimal sections?

Thanks!

Track Changes in documents with fields, footnotes, paragraph #s, etc. always present problems until the changes are accepted/rejected. There is simply no means of a TOC, for example, reflecting a potentially deleted heading that may or may not have been potentially replaced by another one or has had a new entry added before it. Depending on your requirements, you might try turning off Track Changes while updating the TOC.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

I tried it in a version with no track changes, but it still acts like the original author of the document didn't include automatic numbering in the headings (ie: I'd have to go through and insert/update numbering manually!) Know of any work-arounds for this in headings and TOC stuff?

Well, if the author hasn't used numbering for the headings, you can't expect them to appear in the TOC. The numbering doesn't have to be automatic, though, for it to appear there. If the headings lack numbering, the easiest way to add it to all headings is to apply the auto-numbering to one heading, then update the heading Style to match the current paragraph.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]